Lloyd Kahn is the editor-in-chiefof Shelter Publications, an independent California publisher.Shelter Publications specializes in books on buildingand architecture,as well as health and fitness.Lloyds latest book is Small Homes: The Right Size.For more info, see: www.shelterpub.comLloyd Kahn is the editor-in-chief of Shelter Publications, an independent California publisher. Shelter Publications specializes in books on building and architecture, as well as health and fitness. Lloyd’s latest book is Small Homes: The Right Size.For more info, see: www.shelterpub.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/lloydkahn

I've been talking to a guy named Sandy Jacobs off and on over the past few months. We met because both of us have houses featured in a new Rizzoli book by Richard Olsen called Handmade Houses. (Mine was a house I built in Big Sur in the 60s and Sandy's is his ellipsoid/spiral big timber home on a steep Marin County hillside.)
I visited Sandy a few hours ago and here's what we discovered:

"Located on Sauvie Island, just North of Portland Oregon, Jessica and her husband live with their two children in a mere 540 square feet of space. Yes, you read that right, five hundred and forty square feet! Their tiny house sits on 5 acres of property and the Helgerson’s remodelled it using only reclaimed materials, choosing not to add to its existing footprint…a daring choice for a family of four!…"http://birchandbird.com/a-life-less-ordinary

"March 1 is the day Google's new unified privacy policy goes into effect, which means your Google Web History will be shared among all of the Google products you use.
Do you know if Google is tracking your Web activity? If you have a Google account (for, say, Gmail) and have not specifically located and paused the Web History setting, then the search giant is keeping track of your searches and the sites you visited. This data has been separated from other Google products, but on March 1 it will be shared across all of the Google products you use when Google's new privacy policy goes into effect.
If you'd like to prevent Google from combining this potentially sensitive data with the information it has collected from your YouTube, Google+, and other Google accounts, you can remove your Web History and stop it from being recorded moving forward."http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57382925-285/how-to-remove-your-google-web-history/From Lew Lewandowski
I just checked my account and found that they had a record of every search I'd done.No thanks! I removed it all.

“…For 9,900 years,” Richardson said, “we’ve been building up variety in domesticated crops and livestock---this whole wealth of specific solutions to specific problems. For the last 100 years we’ve been throwing it away.” 95% is gone. In the US in 1903 there were 497 varieties of lettuce; by 1983 there were only 36 varieties. (Also changed from 1903 to 1983: sweet corn from 307 varieties to 13; peas from 408 to 25; tomatoes from 408 to 79; cabbage from 544 to 28.) Seed banks have been one way to slow the rate of loss. The famous seed vault at Svalbard serves as backup for the some 1,300 seed banks around the world. The great limitation is that seeds don’t remain viable for long. They have to be grown out every 7 to 20 years, and the new seeds returned to storage.…"
-Stewart Brand's summary of Jim Richardson's talk in San Francisco last Wednesday: http://longnow.org/seminars/02012/feb/22/heirlooms-saving-humanitys-10000-year-legacy-food/

Just before I did the slide show, along came 100s of cyclists down Valencia, turning on to 21st St. Boisterous, friendly, loud. I'd never seen "Critical Mass" before. Worldwide now, started in SF 1982.

I have to admit I'm big on epiphanies. That said, this one was in recognizing that over the last year, with the accelerated work that always goes along with finishing (and printing) a book, I'd been checking email and blogging on weekends. Ulp!
I've decided to knock off the the e-Stuff over the weekends, to get back to a better balance between the world of the Mac and the world of physical reality.
I realized that in my email box there are continually deadlines, rushes, things that need attention tout suite. Also realized that one doesn't have to respond instantly. Been-there-done-that. So I'm gonna kick it down a notch. Doing book signings here and there in the next 3 months, but by golly on some of the days in between I'm gonna get away from the keyboard. More clamming, crabbing, and fishing. More sleeping on beaches. Get going on our Water and Wheels book in the summer.
This weekend I got a lot of backed-up stuff done in the shop. Sharpened chainsaw, fixed clock, greased bearings of boat trailer, set gopher traps (the little fuckers got 4 of my six cabbages), cleaned up clutter on floor and benches in shop, etc.
On Friday I'd gone into San Francisco and had a great day and night, more to follow…

"…Kahn had seen pictures of Novy and Rasmussen's tree house online, and requested that it be included in his new book. Novy wrote the entry that's included in the 218-page book, stating:
'In this modern age of architecture we have, by necessity, become focused on efficiency in every aspect of a building's design. So, it is a rare opportunity for an architect to be able to design a structure whose sole purpose is enlightening the spirit.'
The tree house was designed “for fun, frivolity, and fantasy,” reads the book entry.
Although the tree house is not designed as a living space, it does have electricity and heat, and serves as a “quiet, meditative, relaxing” place for kids and adults alike to hang out.…"http://shltr.net/thgrnhs

"1 Room 14×20 cabin with electric, cold running water, out house and fully furnished. Ready for you to come up and enjoy. Cabin is in great shape, has vinyl siding, shed and nicely wooded lot. Walking distance to Wolf Lake Beach and Wolf Lake Store."http://tinyhouselistings.com/tiny-housecabin/

Running by headlight Tuesday night, I spotted a grey fox in a field alongside the trail. I moved a little closer to him and he stood his ground and looked at me (at my headlight, that is). His eyes glittered like (white) diamonds. Eyes of the cat family (bobcat, very occasional mtn lion) are green or yellow when reflected at night, as I recall…

"Origami is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. The goal of this art is to create a representation of an object using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without the use of gluing or cutting the paper, and using only one piece of paper.
Won Park is the master of Origami. He is also called the “money folder”, a practitioner of origami whose canvas is the United States One Dollar Bill. Bending, twisting, and folding, Won Park creates life-like shapes inspired by objects living and not– both in stunning detail."http://thedesigninspiration.com/articles/won-park-the-master-of-origami-paper-folding/Sent us by R.B. Garden

"When San Francisco artist and builder Jay Nelson sees someone tearing down a redwood fence in his neighborhood he asks if he can take it home with him.
With a stockpile of salvaged, old growth redwood fencing, he recently built a tiny studio for his friend, and neighbor, Lana to use as a home office. It's just under 100 square feet and that means it's small enough so that San Francisco doesn't require a permit.
In this video, Nelson shows us his stockpile of wood, the studio made of nearly all salvaged materials (doors, windows, flooring included) and how it nearly melts into the yard because of its rounded shape. He also gives us a peek at the greenhouse he's building out of some of his recycled redwood just next to the studio (see his blog for more finished photos with decking)."http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/redwood-salvaged-from-city-fences-as-tiny-shedworking-studio/?via=thumbnail

Hi Lloyd,
I thought of you and your blogging/writing after shooting this photo last week.I feel like you've mentioned the electronic cottage before, and I thought this photo captured that concept quite well. I'm looking forward to reading the new book, and I check out your blog a couple times a week.…I'd enjoy hearing more about your building work and career before Shelter Publications. Keep it up!

("Skunked" is a fisherman's term for catching nada.) We trailered my boat up to the bay and when we got there it was blowing hard. At the ramp, a National Park rescue boat (600 horsepower) was just pulling in, towing a boat the same size as mine, with 3 guys in it. The ranger said the fishermen were in trouble, with waves starting to break over the boat, and they were heading back out to check on 2 other boats that could be in trouble (above). He advised us against going out. so we scratched the plan. Below, Billy in a 1940s-style phone booth, and a deep sea diving rig at Nick's Cove restaurant, which has a lot of vintage stuff on display. We got a bunch of bay mussels off the rocks on the way home.

‘A small, concentrated domestic space intensifies everything. It’s like the fire we live around—move it close together and the flame flares up, spread it apart and the fire goes out. We have always lived in small houses, but this one is the smallest and the best. Here I feel all my loose and wandering thoughts are gathered up and made whole. It is an antidote to a world of distractions. It is a world unto itself. It is almost more myself than I am.’http://shltr.net/yroiIgThanks to anonnymuss

Yes, I know. I'm all over. What's going on in my life and head admittedly veers all over the place. Here's part of my animal skull collection (on top of the filing cabinet behind me), notable for the two (roadkill) bobcat skulls front center. I've finally learned how to render animal skulls, and these two came out nicely. After defleshing, I use janitorial strength ammonia for 4-5 days, then 35% hydrogen peroxide (not for faint hearted) for about a week. That's a beaver skull in the background, with one of the long teeth laying in front of it; it slides into the jawbone; found by a lake on Denman Island, BC. Bird skulls on right ((mostly doves), they're light as a feather. Wolf teeth on left (from remote spot 50 miles north of Tofino BC). Rat skull in center. Design!

Saw a beautiful coyote on a recent (unsuccessful) mushroom hunt. The coyotes I see every so often on the highway are a bit scuzzy looking, but this one was grand. Reddish shiny coat, black tail tip; he was big and had a princely profile like a fox.Left: coyote scat, indicating a diet high in mice, gophers. Looks like an art object.
Going through Stinson Beach Tuesday a deer bolted down the road. Galloping, two front feet, then two rear feet alternately. Rippling front leg muscles. Powerful and healthy. Then that night, on my nighttime run by headlight, another coyote at the nearby farm. Ran away from me, then climbed to the top of a pyramid-shaped compost pile. The Joker.
This morning more varieties of birds than I've ever seen outside the kitchen window. Crows, doves, quail, robins, red-winged blackbirds. a Rufus-sided towee (little beauty), sparrows (ugh), and the ever-spooky rock pigeons. Cornucopia of feathered flight.
Some years ago I had a series of dreams about flying. It wasn't like I was just floating in the air. I had to run along, flap arms, and take off. So utterly real, still thrills me to think about it. I often watch (in envy) the elegant-in-flight turkey buzzards riding updrafts by the ocean cliffs, or a line of Pelicans just inches above the water, gliding on the updraft of breaking waves. Eat my heart out.
Here are some Fluted Black Elfin Saddle mushrooms Lew gathered in Inverness, too far past prime to eat, but the only half-way decent fungi in the woods right now. C'mon rain! C'mon low pressure, which allows the storms to come in off the ocean.

Got my 15 hp Evinrude outboard motor tuned up. Billy and I are going clamming, musseling, and crabbing on Saturday in Tomales Bay. I have a 12' aluminum Klamath boat. It's a little dicey getting out through the ocean waves here with a boat that small, but Tomales Bay is a piece of cake. I'm dedicated to getting ever more food from the wild.
Spring is peeking around the corner. The light is richer, green grass growing, plum tree budding out, red-winged blackbirds singing their Spring song. I'm a child of Spring, born in April, so I feel exuberant this time of year.

1. We're doing a (12,500-copy) reprint of Tiny Homes. It will arrive at the Publishers Group West warehouse in Tennessee on April 4. First printing was 15,000 and we're just about out of stock. It sold over 4,000 copies in the first 8 days of February.
2. We're printing 5,000 copies of the (2" x 2-1/4") mini tiny homes book. We've just about gone through the first 2,000. I tell you, I've never had an object that is so much fun to give out. People just love it. (As I'm sure I've said), 95% of the people I hand it to laugh out loud. Not a smile, an audible laugh.
I've been going around to shops in San Francisco, giving it out. Surf or skate shops, barista locales, bike shops, gardening stores. We're going to look for people in different cities to do the same. My friend Shelter Serra took a bunch to NYC a few weeks ago and just emailed "Everyone loves the book!!"
We're setting up book signings for me. Will post places and dates later. We're hoping for word-of-mouth to keep this book rolling. If you love it, email yr. friends.
3. We just reprinted Shelter with Paramount Printers in Hong Kong and does it look good! We'd done recent reprints in Colombia, and the printers were not on the ball like Paramount. This is by far the best printing in 39 years of printing Shelter; photos look snappy. (The first 160,000 copies were done on a web offset (newspaper) press; these are on sheet-fed (better quality) presses.
4. We're reprinting both Home Work and Builders of the Pacific Coast.5. Shameless Commerce Dept: 30% discount on 3 or more of our building books: http://www.shelterpub.com/_ad/TH-sale.html

When it came time to do our first e-book — Marathon: You Can Do It!, by Jeff Galloway — we couldn't find anyone we thought would do a good enough job converting print book to ebook. So Rick Gordon did the book "in-house," for the iPad and the Kindle. It came out really well: typography, color, graphics, and perhaps most importantly, smooth flowing of the many training charts in the book. I compared it with all the other iPad e-books on running, and it looks way better. We entered it in the non-fiction category of the Publishing Innovation Awards this year and it was was one of three runner-ups for the Publishing Innovation Awards in the non-fiction ebook category, from among a lot of entrants. (There were separate categories for apps and multimedia enhanced ebooks.) It was awarded the QED (Quality-Excellence-Design) seal. Here's what the judges said about Rick's work:

African American's tenant's home beside the Mississippi River levee. Near Lake Providence, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
"These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color."http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.aspSent us by Bob Kahn

"When ticking off the benefits of physical activity, few of us would include intracellular housecleaning. But a new study suggests that the ability of exercise to speed the removal of garbage from inside our body’s cells may be one of its most valuable, if least visible, effects.…"New York Times article Feb 1, 2012 by Gretchen Reynolds:http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/exercise-as-housecleaning-for-the-body/?emc=eta1Thanks to Eric Spector for this

"For all of you who love riding a bike downhill but prefer to walk uphill, here is a revolutionary new bicycle design that fits in a rucksack! It is actually meant for going mountain hiking uphill, and then wheeling downhill. The name of this new invention is BergmÃ¶nch, which means "mountain monk" in German. Check out the video below, about the monk riding a BergmÃ¶nch, and the image of the folded out bicycle."http://shltr.net/hikeup

How about this to start off your day (and week)!
BB at the Umeå Jazz Festival, Umeå, Sweden in 1986. Check out the pianist and trumpet player (using rubber toilet plunger as mute, if I'm not mistaken) as well.From Rick Gordon

Sweetwater Saloon was a much-beloved Marin County (California) music venue for 30 years until it closed down 5 years ago. It has now reopened in the old Masonic Hall in Mill Valley and is ramping up its schedule. Last night I was on my way home around 8PM and I stopped in to take a look. Well -- Ausitin Leone and friends were scheduled, there was a $5 cover, and what can a poor boy do?
It was a great night. The room is twice as big as the old place and doesn't have the cozy ambiance, but it feels good, muchly helped by leaving the rough timber ceiling beams (joists for upper story) uncovered. Full house, happy people, great rock and roll and blues by the hometown band.
Here's the new schedule: http://sweetwatermusichall.inticketing.com/events

This is the single most useful site/blog on the web for me. I can't say how many useful things this blog has turned me on to. It's like the electronic Whole Earth Catalog, but what's better is that it uses no paper, and it's daily.

"Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We only post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted. Tell us what you love."

Easiest way to get there is to go to kk.org, then click on "Cool Tools" at the left.

Willie Brown (Speaker of the California State Assembly for 15 years, San Francisco mayor in the late '90s) must have a TV show. I've seen him often at a table in Cafe Roma in North Beach, SF, with major size video cameras filming him, when I get there, around 7 AM. This morning he's meeting with SF's new mayor Ed Lee and a third politico guy who's always here with Willy. They're sitting about 15 feet away. Wille's telling stories and there's a lot of laughter
Willie is a beautiful man, he's gotten better looking with age. This morning he's wearing a gorgeous brown sport coat, dark slacks, a deep red tie and deep red handkerchief. Dude!

"This bamboo Ajiro concept bicycle rethinks both our means of transportation and the ways we manufacture our vehicles. Designed by Monash University student Alexander Vittouris, the Ajiro utilizes a production process that removes emissions instead of releasing them into the Earth’s atmosphere. That’s because the bamboo structure of this vehicle is grown straight out of the ground into a preformed mold. Vittouris envisions fields of bamboo gardens growing these human powered bicycles, which need only small modifications once mature to hit the streets.…"

There were orders with our distributor Publishers Group West for 4,193 copies of the book in the first 8 days of February and we are going back to press right now, just a month after the book hit the bookstores.
First printing was 15,000, this one will be 12,500.
Hey I thought print books were supposed to be dead!

Lloyd.
Love the Tiny Homes book. Thanks. Your blog is a daily read, I so enjoy the eclectic mix of subjects. On that note, I wondered whether this link might interest you;http://sportsmanflyer.blogspot.com/
All the best, Vic Long"

"…I decided to build one and found a vintage Schwinn Panther frame to start with. This particular frame, commonly called a straight bar frame because of it's unique middle frame tube in the front triangle, is very similar in shape to early motorcycles. Gas tanks were added into the pocket between the top and middle frame tubes on these early motorcycles, so it only made sense to build a gas tank to fit the Panther frame in the same fashion.…"PaT Dolanhttp://www.sportsmanflyer.com/

Last night I took a 3-4 mile slow run, solo as usual, such a relief to not be training for races. The salamanders were out, crossing the path as they do, blithely and blindly.They are totally cute, with knobby eyes and splayed-out toes, and they walk like this:

There are small owls that hang out by the sides of the trail, hunting for mice. 5 of them, here and there. They'd let me get maybe 40-50' away, then float off. Owls make no sound when flying. I've heard that their wing feathers have tapered edges so they'll be silent in flight. Miceys, comin to gethcha.

As I got back down into the wetlands, I heard 3 coyotes, singing to each other from different spots. Each call had 3, 4, or 5 notes. Starting low and ending high. One guy had a really high note. They'd yodel a bit in between some notes. The full moon broke through the clouds. Who wouldn't howl with joy?

Pack rats, or wood rats, are all over in this part of the world. In hard-to-reach parts of the woods, they build these 3-foot high pyramidal nests out of sticks and twigs. Some of these are beautifully constructed. Around the homestead, they make nests deep down in the woodpiles. Recently, they've been dragging split kindling up to the top of the wood pile, for what purpose I know not. Surprising that they can and would do this.
They're quite different from scumbag Norwegian rats. They look more like an enlarged mouse, and have white fur on their bellies. I trap them when need be, but to some extent, live and let live.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_rat

I started this blog 7 years ago. A bit reluctantly at first. (Sort of the same way I began using a Macintosh.) As the years have gone by, it's become part of my life; I'm committed to getting up at least one post a day, it gives me a quick and easy way to tell people what I discover in the world around me.
In a way it doubled my workload: I have my work as an author, photographer, and publisher — making books — and there's the blogging. Along with the occasional Tweet, a full plate.

Then along came Facebook. I just didn't have the time to get involved in this different form of communication, so Lew (Lewandowski) started doing a Shelter Facebook page. I didn't really understand how Facebook worked until yesterday when Lew and I looked over his work. I was impressed. At left is a photo that caught my eye: the mobile farm stand of the organic Four Season Farm of Harborside, Maine. Lew scans the web for items of interest.
With the blog I'm basically broadcasting; I don't have time to reply to many comments. With Lew's Facebook page, there's a flow. People don't just comment, they send photos, videos, they share with friends; it's a web of communication. So I'll keep blogging, and Lew will keep Facebooking, and this should give you a pretty good picture of what goes on in our work and with our interests: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shelter-Publications-Inc/91849471589?ref=ts

Mike Litchfield, author of the excellent bookIn-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats (Taunton Books), is going to interview me on the subject of tiny homes on the local West Marin radio station, KWMR, this Thursday at 9 AM, Pacific Time (PST -0800): http://www.kwmr.org/
A great review of Tiny Homes appeared on the flagship of the tiny house movement, the Tiny House Blog, run by Kent Griswold.
Due to that, and the Wall Street Journal's and New York Times' article last week, we had web orders for 41 books today. More on the tiny homes front: Our neighbor. fisherman Todd, told me that a few weeks ago he gave a book to a farmer friend, and the guy is already building something he saw in the book. Last night I saw John Korty, the filmmaker, at a movie in San Rafael and he said that his son was looking at the book and getting ready to build something out of it. It never occurred to me that the book would be such a motivator.